Art Books: New Book from Dorian Vallejo, "Drawings: Inspired By Life"

Dorian Vallejo is a wonderful artist living in New Jersey who has collected together a volume of his work, "Drawings: Inspired By Life," available at http://www.drawingsfromlife.com/Pages/Book/Book_Page.html . The book is $38.99 plus shipping (this sounds like a fantastic bargain to me).

I can't wait to get a copy of this book - I've been a fan of his for a long time. He has been a huge inspiration to me in my own work. What a treat to see all these in one volume. Bravo, Dorian!

At the Jack Richeson Co. booth last week, PSA Convention, Reston VA

I just want to say thanks again to the wonderful people at the Jack Richeson art supply company (http://www.richesonart.com/) for letting me demo at their booth at the Portrait Society of America convention last week in Reston, VA. Their products are terrific and I really enjoyed working with them. (I wish I'd taken a photo of the other side of this canvas I'm working on - aluminum stretcher bars - I'm ordering them from Richeson on my next big commission.) Richeson also has, hands down, the best brush soap I've ever used.

I also wanted to thank my friend and incredible artist Juan Martinez (http://www.juanmartinez.com/) for bravely sitting for me for the demo. He is a chief instructor at Toronto's Academy of Realist Art and has written extensively on training in the classical tradition. Juan is also a TV star - check out his site for more information about him and his work.

'Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it' - Leonardo da Vinci

I had a nice discussion with an artist last week about painting portrait head studies. She felt she was pretty accurate with still life paintings, but when it came down to painting heads in a tight time frame (two or three hours is a tight time frame) she didn't do as well.

My off the cuff advice was to continue doing the still life studies, but what I should have advised her to do was to get one of these planes of the head casts. Many years ago I studied with a woman who made us do a charcoal drawing of this cast before every portrait painting. That practice really helped me understand the shapes and relative values of what is going on with a head as the different planes turn away from the light source. Naturally, this head is a prototype, not an actual individualized head and so all results will vary. But it will help you form a set of presumptions in your brain - not assumptions, presumptions -to look for when painting from life. (In other words, you can presume there is an indentation below the lower lip - but it's not always there in every subject. And if it isn't there, you might decide that this characteristic is something that you might want to pay special attention to.) It helps you to see the sculptural forms as you paint and (important when there is a timer ticking) with practice can help you make judgements a little more quickly.

This is a cast designed by John Asaro many years ago. My own cast is an plaster one (notice the cracked base, glued together when it fell out of my car. Rats.) The newer ones are plastic (gray plastic, I believe) and are more durable; they are available here: http://www.planesofthehead.com/index.php I've also seen a variety of good planes casts on the internet.

Using Binoculars

I've been using these for a few months now and I think they are a terrific tool for anybody who wants to improve their work from life. I am of course indebted to the indefatigable David Kassan for this suggestion (http://www.davidkassan.com/).

I know what you're thinking... this is just a tool to render the life out of things, and who needs all that detail? But hear me out:

1. These aren't just any binoculars, these are the Pentax 0.5m Papilo 6.5 x 21, 'extremely close focusing' 0.5m/1.6ft binos. In other words, you don't have to be standing too far away to use them, as you would with other binos. They are good for a situation where a model is on the other side of the room from you, for example, or where it's awkward to walk up and get a closer look at what you're doing.

2. You don't use them for designing a painting, or planning the concept, or squinting for shadows, or even necessarily for detail. You use them to establish accuracy of placement. I find them especially useful to help me with any spatial confusion I might have on an object. In other words, if I can't really see what is in front of something else, I might be tempted to treat the whole area as one unit. This is fine if that is what you want in your painting, but if you want to add detail, or sharpen an edge, etc. for any aesthetic purpose, it is nice to see what you're doing and make an informed decision. It's a decision making tool, basically.

3. The binos help you focus your mind on the area you're painting. This last point surprised me, frankly. I suppose it's a little like putting blinders on a horse - you're not distracted by the nonsense going on next to you, or what else might be rumbling around in your mind at the moment. You're focused on getting one particular area correct - that's it.

Drawbacks in using these include arm strain from holding them up to your eyes, and the sheer goofiness of how they look when you put them on top of your other glasses.

Three Day Workshop, "Painting the Three-Quarter Pose" July 6th, 7th, 8th in Scottsdale

I'll be teaching a three-day workshop this summer at Scottsdale Artists School (http://www.scottsdaleartistschool.org/) on July 10th, 11th and 12th, 2010. The class will be on painting the portrait pose with hands, a "three quarter figure" pose. This will give us an opportunity to explore the expresion of an individual's personality using body language and hands. We'll also address drawing, values, strong design, accurate color, as well as clothing concerns.

I've set up the class for oil painters, but I see no reason why you shouldn't work in drawing media if you wanted to draw from a model in the same pose for three days.

I've taught this workshop a couple of times during the past several years (I've posted a photo here from a few years back) and I'm really looking forward to teaching again this summer. I'll write more about the workshop and how to register for it as we get a little closer to the date - meanwhile, please contact me if you have any questions.

Congratulations, Sharon Knettell!

Congratulations to Sharon Knettell for her beautiful painting, featured on the cover of the March, 2010 issue of Artist's Magazine!

(Click on her link - http://www.sharonknettell.com/ to see more of her work.) Sharon has been a great help to me in setting up my own studio for life painting sessions and I love her passionate and sensual work. She has a remarkable talent for arranging color in her setups. I'm including a photo of her teaching at Scottsdale Artists School a couple of years ago - she brought her own costumes (tutus, corsets, etc.) for the models - really great stuff.

New Drawing DVD coming soon from David Kassan

New York artist David Kassan is a terrific draftsman and generous teacher who does beautiful work (see my previous post in 2007: http://lindatraceybrandon.blogspot.com/2007/09/drawing-with-david-kassan-in-brooklyn.html ).

His new drawing DVD is about to be released - to see the trailer, click on the button at http://dvd.davidkassan.com/ and then sign up for email notification. Of course, I haven't seen the DVD yet, but I'm sure it will be a good one.